French Investigate Terrorist for Link with Cafe Bombing

June 24, 1983

PARIS (Jun. 23)

An Arab terrorist being held in Lisbon for the April 10 murder of Palestine Liberation Organization official Issam Sartawi, is believed by French police to be the same man who participated in attacks on a Jewish restaurant here last August 9 and on the main synagogue in Rome last October 9.

The suspect, Youcef Al Awat, 26, is allegedly a member of the extremist Abu Nidal gang which has attacked Jewish targets and PLO representatives in several European cities in recent years. The grenade attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant on the Rue Des Rosiers in Paris’ old Jewish quarter last August claimed six lives and wounded 22. The attack on the Rome synagogue exactly two months later killed a child and wounded 34 other persons.

A French investigating magistrate has flown to Lisbon, accompanied by the chief inspector of the Paris police criminal squad, to interrogate Awat. They are seeking confirmation that the suspect was in Paris last August 9. According to his forged Moroccan passport he was here at the time of the Rue Des Rosiers attack and was also in Rome when the synagogue was attacked.

Police have already determined that the grenades used in Paris and Rome came from the same mould. If suspicions are confirmed that Awat was one of the killers, responsibility for the outrages would fall on Abu Nidal who presently lives under the protection of Iraq and Syria.